


These Unresolved Things

by Harukami



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-14
Updated: 2008-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 18:30:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Author's Notes:</b> For the prompt: <i>Digital Devil Saga 2, Roland/Argilla/Jinana: Hurt/Comfort, Semi-public sex with a sense of urgency, optional mild xenokink/creative uses of berserker form - "My girlfriend's girlfriend."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	These Unresolved Things

Roland hesitates in the background because he doesn't know what to say; he wants to go up to Argilla and say _something_. 'Thank you' is too weak and doesn't cover half of what it meant to him to not die alone right then, to make something of his life in the last of it with her help; he couldn't have done it alone. But he feels out of place, tired, unsure, and Argilla is focussed on someone else and it's sad, he thinks, to feel so unimportant just like this.

*

There are tears streaming down her face; she can't seem to stop them from coming. Jinana, glowing faintly in this place, eyes gentle and a sad smile on her face, reaches out and touches Argilla's cheek, rubs her thumb in a slow circle, smearing tears.

"You do not need to cry any more, Argilla," Jinana says, soft. "Here at the end, must you be sad?"

Argilla shakes her head furiously, covers her own mouth with both hands as if to muffle the sobs coming out. "I'm not," she manages to stammer. "I'm not... sad."

"But these are tears," Jinana points out, quiet.

"I know," Argilla says, "I know, Jinana, I--" and then she can't hold back any more; she throws herself into Jinana's arms, clinging. Jinana is warm, feels alive, soft and solid against her. Out of shock as much as anything else, Jinana's arms come around her.

And then she holds Argilla closer. She murmurs, "Ahh, Argilla. It's all right," and she rubs Argilla's back slowly, feels the press of Argilla's body against hers, looks up and sees the young man there watching them.

*

For a moment, Roland doesn't know where to look. He knows who this is; he's seen a lot of the Junkyard videos, after all. He knows what she was to Argilla, or at least, what it looked like had been to Argilla. He also knows that as far as she's concerned he's a stranger; he tries to rein in his response and give her a polite smile.

She blinks, then nods to him, politely. After a moment, though, she's ducked her head, murmured something he can't make out to Argilla, and taken Argilla by the shoulders and turned her.

"--Roland," Argilla says, and she smiles at him. There are tears on her face; Roland wants to go over and wipe them away. But he thinks that might not be welcomed, so he forces his hand to stay at his side.

He says, "Argilla. Are you ... well?" and then feels a little silly; she's dead. They're all dead, after all.

But she's nodding, smiling, and she says, her voice shaking, "Look, Roland. It's Jinana. Jinana's here."

"Ah, yes," he says, and pushes his glasses up; tries another smile like his heart isn't breaking. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Jinana."

"Roland," she repeats it the same way Argilla had, but in her mellow voice. She runs a hand down Argilla's arm, and he sees Argilla's eyes close in something like pleasure. "Yes, it is. Is he someone important to you, Argilla?"

"He's someone I died for," Argilla says.

His heart contracts. Jinana looks distant for a moment, then smiles again, though she still seems focussed far away somehow. "That must be," she says, "a good way to die, as such things exist."

*

Argilla thinks _Yes_ and _No_ at once, because it had been a terrible way to go -- seeing him bleeding there, seeing him dying, knowing that she didn't have a chance to save him. But there were worse ways, and it was better than living through the same without doing anything.

She says, "I," and then doesn't really know what to say, and sighs. Slowly, she steps away from Jinana, towards Roland. "I'm glad to see you again."

"Me too," he says, but he sounds awkward, off somehow. "I didn't mean to interrupt, though."

"Interrupt?" she tilts her head. "Roland, what are you talking about."

"You and--" he gestures. "...you love her, don't you?'

"Well, yes," she says. "But I don't get your meaning."

"I don't--" His brows crease and he smiles again, uncomfortably. "You're a bit difficult to deal with, sometimes."

The question lingers between them for a moment and then she understands and pain hits. He's backing away still, slowly, just a step at a time, and she says, "Roland, I -- please don't make me pick between you."

"I'm sorry," he says. "Like I said, I don't mean to interrupt--"

"Pardon," Jinana says, low-voiced. "But by asking you not to have her choose, does that mean that you should not force a choice in either direction...?"

Roland pushes his glasses up again. "Well," he says. "I suppose not--"

Grateful, Argilla reaches back, takes Jinana's hand, squeezes it; it amazes her all over again that they could have known each other for such a short time and known each other so well. "That's what I mean," she agrees.

"Well, I," Roland says, and hesitates. "I'm not sure... what to say."

"Why don't we just take a chance," Argilla says, "and all get to know each other. Please, Roland? We have... time now," she adds, and holds out her hand.

For a moment she thinks Roland isn't going to move, and then he sighs, ducks his head with a small smile, and steps forward, taking it. "Well," he says. "I'll certainly try..."

*

It goes well enough for the next little while: talking a little. Nothing important, miniscule things, happiness. Argilla seems shaken up and moved and blissful and a little bit wry at the same time, and Roland thinks that it's not bad like this.

And then solar noise reaches its peak and that subtle _wrongness_ of the area shifts, becomes louder, harder to resist. Roland draws a slow breath to force himself through it, sees Argilla focusing likewise, though he thinks she won't last this one; her eyes have flickered yellow and her arms are starting to unwind.

And then Jinana screams, head tossed back, the green of her eyes flaring into yellow and spreading out into the whites, teeth sharpening. As he watches, her hair lengthens into a whipcord, a sharp hook at the end. "I," Jinana says, voice roughening. " _I_ \--"

Argilla says, "Jinana, _no_ ," and strangely, it seems to have helped her get a grip on herself; human again, she throws herself at Jinana, pins the slender woman down with her body weight, wraps her fingers around Jinana's wrists. "You can't lose yourself!"

Roland hesitates, unsure of what to do.

Under Argilla, Jinana rocks up, arches her back and writhes, letting out another wail, the sound somewhere between human and _not_ ; she's barely clothed at the best of times and it shows the strain of her muscles, the press of her ribs against her skin. He loses sight of her body a moment later as Argilla presses herself down more fully, lengthwise, scatters helpless kisses across Jinana's face and mouth.

"Please," Argilla says, softly. "Please. _Jinana--_ "

Jinana gasps for air, and then the whip of her hair wraps around Argilla, holds her closer, and Jinana's hands tense against the ground, loosen, tense again. She turns her head into the kiss and her mouth works; Roland tenses, but doesn't see blood, so thinks that must be good; the pain of realization that this is a lover's embrace comes a moment later, and with less regret than he expected he'd feel. Jinana is still barely in control, her eyes gold and her body changed, but she murmurs Argilla's name, rolls with her, slices along the back of Argilla's clothes with the hook of her hair.

Roland sees Argilla's back bared underneath, the spandex of her bodysuit beneath separating from the sharp edge, and Argilla lets out a little noise as she gets tangled in the shreds of her uniform. "I -- I'm stuck," she says, with a hopelessly tear-soaked laugh, and Jinana kisses her again, head tilted back between kisses like it can help her breathe, like Argilla's giving her something like mouth-to-mouth.

Reluctant to help, reluctant to just sit and watch, Roland reaches out and pulls some of the larger scraps from Argilla; they're warm and smell like her and he holds them uncertainly while Argilla's head tilts back; she looks at him, and says, " _Roland--_ "

He tries a smile.

Jinana's intent on Argilla, one hand sliding down her body, sliding between her legs, and Roland can't look away even as he hates to watch; Argilla gasps, eyes widening with an expression like realization. Has she ever been touched there before? he wonders. Did she even touch herself-?

"I want," Jinana says, and her voice is strained. "I want to make you happy. I want to see you smile--"

Argilla is crying again, like she can't stop, and she nods, says, "You do, Jinana, you do--"

Roland manages, then, to glance aside, like it's some act of decency as he stands there with her torn clothing in his hands, watching the flicker of body on body beside him out of the corner of his eye, listening to Jinana's low murmurs and Argilla's ragged cries.

They don't stop when the solar noise begins to relent again, but they seem to grow gentler; when he looks back again Jinana has reverted to her normal self, is lying down with her hands sliding up and down Argilla's body like it is something strange and magnetizing; Argilla straddling her, hips jerking against the friction of Jinana's bared thigh, and Roland hisses between his teeth, looks away again, wishes the pain was enough to kill his own arousal.

He tries to start again, says aloud, "I should go--"

"Roland," Argilla says, and looks back at him. Her eyes are heavy with arousal, nipples hard, hips twitching regularly against the pressure of Jinana's leg. She lifts a hand and holds it to him, shaking a little. "I think... I understand a little how these things work."

He's flushing.

"You're really hopeless sometimes," she adds. "Come _here_ ," and he thinks about protesting; this is awkward, he should leave, but he pushes his glasses up with sweating fingers and walks closer, more stiffly.

Jinana turns her head to look at him and gives him a hazy smile. She looks tired, worn-out, content; at the same time, harmless and out of danger. Her hand traces a circle on the ground, then lifts. She says, "You are a generous man, are you not?"

He can't find an answer to that which isn't denial, and can't seem to voice that.

Argilla lets out a little moan, then raises her hand to her mouth as if the sound surprised her. She draws another shaking breath, and says, "I love you both. I want everything. We have _time_ now -- please. Roland. I don't want to lose this chance. I--"

He comes closer, kneels down in the spot Jinana had indicated. He's terribly hard, can't tear his eyes from her making love to this old lost love of hers. He reaches out a hand to her cheek. She takes it, her fingers brushing the atma on the back of his hand, presses it to her cheek. It's flushed, hot, and he thinks she's terribly close to coming; he thinks he wants to watch, he thinks he wants to help, he tries to hold himself back.

"What do you want?" he asks her.

"I want--" and then she's shutting up, and he thinks she's fighting the urge to come. Jinana touches Argilla's hip and Argilla lets out a low cry and tosses her head; he watches breathlessly and thinks she isn't hiding anything like this. Argilla's sort of an honest person as it is, he thinks. She needed this, he thinks.

He doesn't expect her to remember what she was saying, but she does, gathers her breath a moment later and opens her eyes with their pupils blown, licks her lips, looks at him. "I want a chance," she says. "At... having the things I want."

It's strange, to be included in that. He can't find the words, is afraid to say _I love you_ , is alarmed by the fact that it's all right like this, that her happiness makes him this happy, and he can't seem to mind, and it doesn't look like Jinana minds either -- that Argilla's girlfriend -- _my girlfriend's girlfriend_ \-- doesn't mind, he thinks, and smiles wryly; it's not a bad term if it works. None of them seem to mind.

"Roland?" she asks, sounding cautious, on-edge, and he thinks maybe he's held out too long; he's the one making this out to be harder than it should be.

He shakes his head at her, and says, quietly, "That... sounds good to me," and, because her smile is too happy, and makes him feel strangely embarrassed, to cover it up, he leans in and kisses her.


End file.
